Shock at Finance’s Blank Cheque for SiteServ Review

14th May 2015

Unsustainable that KPMG Review into taxpayer value is proceeding without any limit on budget

Fianna Fáil Member of the Public Accounts Committee Sean Fleming TD has expressed shock following the revelation that the Department of Finance has established its already flawed KPMG review of the SiteServ sale without any agreement or estimate of the costs involved.

Deputy Fleming forced the admission at this morning’s meeting of the Public Accounts Committee while questioning top officials from the Department of Finance.

Deputy Fleming commented, “The purpose of my questions this morning was in the first instance to get some sense of how seriously the department was taking the review of the SiteServ transaction and get a sense of the scale of effort going into it. We have been critical of the format being used since day one, but I expected that at the very least the department would have an agreed budget in place.

“I was therefore genuinely shocked by the fact that not only had a budget not been agreed, top officials were unable to estimate to even the nearest million euro how much this flawed process is going to cost taxpayers.

“This is outrageous and completely unacceptable. Has Government learned nothing? It is unbelievable to think that a flawed process, set up to review whether taxpayers achieved good value in a financial transaction has itself been given a blank cheque!

“I will be formally asking the Clerk and Chairman of the PAC to schedule a special meeting of the committee to get answers on this and get clarity on what this process is going to cost. It would appear that Government hoped this would slip under the radar and we could simply complain about costs afterwards. That is not going to happen.”

Hey Micheal Martin, whats this rubbish about you defending 180 Garda statements that didn't hold up in Court.. What strokes you trying to pulling in saving this broken institutions face.
A) Disband it, its too steeped in civil war politics.
B) Establish a new force with a separate investigative wing.
C) As the Police are a seperate institution to politics then make the new Commissioner an electable position to ensure public confidence instead of 'political' confidence (other countries do it)